


Fires

by gunmetal_ring



Series: Headcanons [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble, Gen, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29046564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunmetal_ring/pseuds/gunmetal_ring
Summary: He has no idea what she can't say.(Season 10, episode 9: "Squeeze")
Series: Headcanons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2156577
Kudos: 3





	Fires

**Author's Note:**

> Just an angsty little drabble to get you through your day!

"You gotta try," he'd said, and when he'd held her she'd believed she deserved him, just for a moment. She deserved the comfort. The friendship. The love. Everything he wanted to give her.

But she knows better. She _should_ have known better. Because her moment of weakness - her moment of sheer stupidity in believing that maybe other people could help her, maybe she didn't have to bear her burdens alone, could be around her without the stench of ashes and death surrounding them - eventually cost them a trip to a cave that's filled to the brim with Alpha's horde.

He's right. He _begged_ her to talk to him, and she didn't. She couldn't. She can't. And she can't stop thinking about it either, no matter how much she knows she should.

Even if she could force the words through the block in her throat, she doesn't know what to say.

But he's so sincere. She knows he means it - or, at least, to the extent that he can imagine.

He has no idea what she can't say.

She's weak, and he's begging, and she wants to make him feel better after all the pieces she's left for him to pick up.

So she tries, and all she can say is what's on the surface. What should be obvious to him. What will hopefully tell him that she's just not worth the effort.

"I don't want to just _kill_ Alpha. I want to _hurt_ her."

Her voice cracks, but he looks at her, expecting more, so she keeps going.

"I want to make her regret everything. I want her to beg for forgiveness, and _then_ I want to kill her."

And he's so understanding, so caring, so _comforting_ , and she doesn't deserve it.

"People you care about are starting to get hurt," he says, and he just doesn't _get_ it.

 _Starting_ to get hurt? _Starting_? He must be willfully blind.

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," she says, and it's true, to an extent. She didn't _intend_ to get everyone involved in her quest for revenge, lead them across the border and trap them in a cave. Of course she didn't _intend_ to. But she should have _known_ that everything she does causes other people to get hurt.

And he wants her to promise that she'll stop. She wants to stop hurting everyone around her.

She wants to stop obsessing over Alpha. Or at least _wants_ to want it.

"I promise," she says, and she can hear how flimsy it is, but he relents.

She wants to mean it.

\--

She sees the dynamite and she knows what she has to do.

She tries, she's _so close_ , but she slips, plan shot to hell, and as she's hanging by a thread, he's here.

 _Again_.

"She killed my boy," is all she can choke out, but it's not entirely true.

The bitch murdered her son, but Carol's the one that got him killed.

She ruins everything around her. Everyone she's ever loved goes up in smoke, by her hand or simply by their proximity to her. She's a toxic force. How can he not see that? Why won't he let her go?

She hates him for it, just a little.

Not hate. She could never hate him. But she wishes he would open his eyes and accept the truth laid bare in front of him. He'll die because of her, one way or another. Everyone does.

Even if she were blind to the utter chaos around her, it's been made clear to her a hundred times over that her suffering is her fault. Other people's suffering is her fault. Ed literally beat it into her, time and time again. Rick dumped her on the side of the road because of it. Sophia was bit, Mika was killed, Lizzie was executed, Sam was eaten alive, and Henry's head was put on a pike, kept alive in the most heinous fashion just to drive home the fact that it is her fault. It is always her fault.

If she's not killing the people she cares about, she's killing to protect them, and pieces of her keep burning away until there's nothing left but her trail.

Embers follow her wherever she walks, and half the time it's because of the fires she's literally set. Karen, David, the people at Terminus, the Saviors in the slaughterhouse, the Saviors on the side of the road.

The least she can do is set one last fire, eliminate half the horde, give everyone a fighting chance to stay alive, to win the war. Even if it means taking herself out in the process.

Especially if it means taking herself out in the process.

She's tried to say it all. She's tried to show it all. She's _tried,_ and Daryl still doesn't get it. Must be willfully blind, because he's not stupid.

Why? Why does he do this? Why can't he just let her go?

But she's too weak to do what's right, so she follows him back.

She should have known.

And they leave her by the side of the collapsed cave, hammering home the message she just can't seem to learn: _you destroy everything you touch_.

She should have known.


End file.
